Repeated studies confirm the obvious: unattended exposure by children to television viewing retards initiative, stifles imagination and mental development, and breeds both passivity and aggression. Television is unquestionably the single most important device influencing the socialization, maturation and education of children today. Its capacity to be a powerfully positive force is exceeded only by its capacity to be a degenerative force. The problem is not television itself, but the huge diversity of television offerings combined with constant accessibility. How many parents grapple with trying to "budget" television time, or with removing "the tube" altogether, only to encounter circumstances which make their well-intentioned policies impractical?
Television has been described as "the junk food of the mind". Like a bowl of candy left on the coffee table, once overconsumption has begun it is hard to stop, and usually continues until the temptation is gone or nausea sets in.
A precursor to modern control apparatus is the appliance safety lock shown in FIG. 1. It is a simple but effective means of preventing undesired use of an electric appliance, such as a television, food processor, electric hand tool, table saw, etc. it is basically a locking case in which to safely secure an appliance plug. The product can be produced very inexpensively, but would assure security and safety.
A primary disadvantage is that, for frequently used appliances, such enclosure use may prove to be a nuisance.
It is a primary object of the present invention to overcome the problems associated with uncontrolled exposure to television. The present invention is a fairly simple and effective alternative to existing home entertainment equipment control.
Existing control apparatus lack simplicity of design or operation, or both. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,566,033 discloses a token-activated television control apparatus which allows a pre-established amount of television viewing time per each token inserted into the control apparatus. The problem with this invention is that control of television viewing time is not simple or definite. In the common situation in which more than one person has tokens or access to tokens, the tokens, and hence the television viewing time, can be exchanged, making it necessary to monitor the tokens. Hence, the problem of control has merely been transferred from the television to the tokens.